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okay, okay, so you might want to sue me after this post, but i only feel it’s fair to share how i constantly fight this crazy love/hate battle with pinterest. i know, i know, shameful to even speak the words hate + pinterest in the same sentence but i promise i have good reasons for creating such a travesty in the form of a blog post. i fight a constant battle of loving the words, “so i saw this pin on pinterest” and hating them at the same time. from our mothers to our friends to even our husbands, the nation is on a “pinning” craze leaving real life up to a tiny little photo they saw on the internet and had to emulate. this whole pinterest nation has been a blessing in ways but it also has been on big fat curse over the wedding industry, if you ask me. a haven for people to be inspired, see new concepts, and organize thoughts, pinterest has taken the world on a pinning ride. as a photographer it is only fair to share my true and candid thoughts…  so please, read this post from top to bottom and if you still disagree, well, i’ll send you a cupcake in the mail.

we took something we had pinned and made it our own.

1.) it stunts and enhances creativity: when i planned my wedding there was no pinterest, only thousands of wedding blogs showing gorgeous photos of california weddings, all a different style than i wanted to emulate. so, i dug deep and we partnered as a team to come up with things that meant a lot to us as a couple and helped create our wedding vision. from our grandfathers cigar box to our grandmothers hankies, we used personal touches that showed our history and didn’t focus on details that were merely pretty to look at. people see something on pinterest, recreate it, and voila gorgeous details that don’t mean anything to the couple. on the adverse side, people can take an idea and make it their own, they can be inspired or a pin could get their wheels turning on something to incorporate. i love when my couples show off their personal style and share intimate details of their lives with their guests, it is those details that drive me to fall in love with weddings.

i love how my couple used concert tickets they had been to together as table numbers. 

2.) it brings up insecurities: if you look at my pinboards i have anything from amazing home decor, to fun fashions, to beautiful weddings. as fun as it is to organize inspiration it can really bring out insecurities in so many people. will my house ever look like that pin or will i always live in a tiny apartment? can i pull off colored jeans like that skinny model did? did i cook a homemade feast for dinner or was it mac and cheese from the box? i can find myself lusting after different things after perusing pinterest and suddenly i am unhappy with my closet filled with clothes, my cutely decorated condo, and the photos hanging on our walls… how did that happen? looking at so many things that aren’t quite attainable, it can leave us all a little insecure. as awesome as the inspiration may be, it can bring out the fact that we all don’t live these “highlight reel” lives on a daily basis. so don’t let this gorgeousness of the pins get you down, use it as fuel to bring out the creativity in yourself and create looks that scream YOU. inspiration yes, real life? no.

love this impromptu shot of the girls sitting on a dumpster, so perfect.

3.) it changes expectations: so many brides make these immaculate boards of what they want their wedding and their wedding photos to look like. i love perusing pinterest for posing inspiration or for fun ideas that could use my personal creative spin. but lately, weddings feel a little like groundhogs day because i have seen it all before. brides are on this mission to make their day perfect based off of pins of other peoples weddings and they lose the essence of themselves in the whole process. it makes it awfully hard to see something “new” at weddings, because everyone has seen it all before… on pinterest. i never want to perfectly recreate an image, because that isn’t how an artist thinks. as a photographer it is super awesome to click through someones boards prior to shooting their wedding to see their style and to help understand their vision. it also can bring forth awkward photo ideas trying to recreate something they saw on pinterest and can make for a list of photos that are staged and not naturally occurring, focus on letting your day flow and fall into natural poses that you and our honey would normally do. part of hiring your photographer is trusting that they have a creative eye, know how to pose, and help capture the essence of you perfectly, not someone elses big day. so simplify your life, don’t overwhelm yourself, and enjoy looking at the gorgeousness but keep your boards as minimal as you can handle. your wedding is gorgeous regardless of if it is never pinned or pinned a thousand times… do YOU.

stunning things happen when you fully trust your photographer, these happened naturally. 

4.) it can be overwhelming. sure it can be overwhelmingly awesome, i can get caught up in pinterest for a good hour before i realize where the last sixty minutes of my life went, but with so many ideas and images as visual eye candy it can leave you overwhelmed with what the heck you really want. instead of staring at a screen for hours upon hours, take a walk, grab a book, get outside and find your own inspiration in the world around you. remember the pre-pinterest days when you would book mark pages to remind yourself of things that inspired you? remember when you would dog ear magazines and tear out pages to create your own collage? don’t forget about the amazing resources right at your fingertips. talk to your parents, your fiance, your best friend and ask them to come up with three words they would use to describe the two of you as a couple. use those words as the foundation to your wedding plans and choose things that mean a lot to you as a couple. we are slowly falling back into these overwhelming cookie cutter weddings thanks to pinterest. don’t create staged moments just to have a photograph of something, when you look at that photo you won’t remember the bliss and ease of it, you’ll remember the awkward staging necessary to capture it. instead, let things happen naturally. let your relationships do the talking and relax as your day is documented just as it happens. regardless of if you are doing an office renovation or planning a wedding, pinterest can create internal conflict when you find so many things you love but don’t know what to do with them or how to apply them in real life.

i love how these two kept it super simple but personal, this is pure perfection.

5.) it can also be amazing. sure, as a photographer i have my reservations about the pinterest nation, but it is such an awesome way to put together an organized look into your life and what inspires you, from recipes to quotes, from photos to outfits, it serves as an amazing resource for just about anyone. as long as you take what you see merely as inspiration for you to make something your own, you will be blessed by the “pinning craze.” so many weddings i go to now talk about things they saw on pinterest, but i want to show up to your wedding and see YOU. your love, your relationship, your details… not someone elses. so let it inspire you, but don’t try to copy it, because at the end of the day your wedding is simply, YOURS.

want to see what inspires me? i suppose you could follow me on pinterest. (just don’t go overboard..)

i would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this, do you agree? disagree? make my day, leave a comment.